12/09/2025
Dexter’s Finally Off His Heavy Load
Like Atlas in Greek Mythology, Dexter’s carrying the weight of the world. Not on his shoulders though but on his chest.
It’s humongous and heavy. It’s not painful but it caused Dexter extreme discomfort. It reduced the quality of his daily life. He can’t walk or run like he used to.
What the heck he’s carrying anyway?
It’s a Soft Tissue Sarcoma.
🍒 What is it?
⚡️Soft Tissue Sarcoma (STS) is a tumor that originates in connective tissues, muscles, tendons and adipose tissues.
⚡️STS usually grows under the skin with a firm, non-painful mass. This mass can cause discomfort as it grows bigger.
🍒 How does it progress into a large tumor?
⚡️STS grows slowly over weeks or months. Most cases of STS arise without a clear, definite cause. It is often unknown but somewhat related to chronic inflammation, environmental and genetic factors.
⚡️The growth rate of STS varies upon the tumor’s grade. Low-grade STS can grow slowly in months and years while High-grade STS grows and spreads more quickly.
🍒 Treatment Options
⚡️ Surgery. This is the complete surgical removal of the mass.
⚡️ Chemotherapy. If the tumor is too large and can’t be removed with surgery, chemo helps the tumor’s growth to slow down its progress.
⚡️ Radiation. This is used in managing STS when surgical margins are incomplete and when the tumor’s location site is inoperable.
Dexter’s case is a Low-grade STS.
Treatment of choice is surgical removal.
We did the surgical procedure cautiously because he’s anemic. Pawrent don’t want to wait any longer because Dexter’s quality of life is already affected. His tumor dangles to the ground whenever he walks.
While doing the procedure, the team had a guessing game what’s the weight of the mass. Could it be 0.5kg or more? The highest guess was 0.8kg. When the mass was removed and weighed, it was a whooping 1kg! Nobody got it right. It exceeded our estimation!
After surgery, Dexter’s case was far from over.
With a 10-inch incision, post-operative care at home is crucial. This can MAKE or BREAK the surgical procedure.
Without strict restriction of movement and not wearing of cone? Incision site can be licked causing sutures to open. Wounds can get infected, can delay healing, patient can either have sepsis and in extreme cases the patient will die.
But Dexter has been a very good boy. Although he likes to move a lot, he didn’t chew his incision site😘 Pawrent also kept an eye on him religiously.
His D-Day was his suture removal day.
Incision site?
Healed, beautifully.
Now that it’s over, Dexter can play, walk comfortably and run wherever & whenever he wants to.
He’s finally free!
🐶🩷Pawrent: Cel Garcia
Side Note:
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Cheers🥂 to your pet’s health!